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Cele|bitchy | Will Prince Andrew ‘lose’ his chance to spend the summer at Balmoral?

Will Prince Andrew ‘lose’ his chance to spend the summer at Balmoral?

After his “Scottish coronation,” King Charles returned to London and Windsor, where he’s still working and doing events ahead of his first “summer” as monarch. QEII tended to do the same – she would go to Scotland in the first week of July for Holyrood Week, then she would return to London for business, then by mid-to-late July, she was off for Balmoral. Sometimes it was earlier than that, especially in her later years – she couldn’t wait to get to Balmoral and start her summer holiday, and she would often not return to London until October. Charles will do things differently – after all, he owns multiple homes in Scotland, and he prefers to spend time at Castle of Mey and Birkhall rather than the “big house” at Balmoral. As such, he’s extended the summer calendar for when tourists can visit Balmoral, because he’s not going to be using it. This is being framed as some kind of snub to Prince Andrew.

Already fighting moves to evict him from his Windsor home, Royal Lodge, Prince Andrew now faces losing his summer holiday venue as well. I can disclose that King Charles has decided to keep Balmoral open to the public for an extra two weeks, during the time when his younger brother would usually stay at the private Scottish retreat with Sarah, Duchess of York and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

‘This will bring significant new revenue into the estate,’ says my man in the kilt and sporran. ‘It may, however, have the effect of annoying the Duke of York, who has treasured his time in Royal Deeside ever since he was a little boy.’

Queen Elizabeth would always begin her summer holidays at her beloved Balmoral on the last weekend of July. However, the estate, which was bought by Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, in 1852, will now be open to the public daily until August 16.

It’s understood that the King will continue his own tradition of spending the first week of August at the Castle of Mey, in Caithness, the former home of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. He may then head to Birkhall, his home on the Balmoral Estate, while he waits for the castle to close to tourists.

Andrew could, in theory, visit the Aberdeenshire estate later in the summer, but he would need to be invited by the King. Queen Elizabeth invited Andrew to stay with his daughters and their families each summer.

Although Fergie was thought to have exchanged not a single word with her former father-in-law, Prince Philip, for many years after she divorced Andrew in 1996, she remained on good terms with the Queen. Sarah stayed several times at Balmoral, although she always left before Philip arrived. Fergie underwent a gruelling, eight-hour operation last month as she battles breast cancer.

‘The Duchess is in recovery from a major operation so she has made no travel plans at this stage,’ her spokesman tells me. ‘Summer holiday/travel will be guided by how she is feeling at the time.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I find it interesting that they’re making this all about Andrew, when really, it affects the whole family? Maybe Charles doesn’t have the same expectations as his mother, who basically demanded everyone in the family to trot up to Balmoral for at least four or five days every summer. Charles doesn’t even want to live in the big house, he wants to just use it for family dinners and such. But surely, by extending the tourism, he knows that most of the family will avoid going to Balmoral this summer? It’s funny because Andrew was probably the only one who genuinely enjoyed spending time there. Most of the family would just do the obligatory drop-by for a few days and then they were off to enjoy their real summer holiday.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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42 Responses to “Will Prince Andrew ‘lose’ his chance to spend the summer at Balmoral?”

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  1. Eurydice says:

    Charles isn’t sentimental about family and property the way Elizabeth was.

    • Gubbinal says:

      I don’t think he’ll have enough to get together a good game of “ibble-dibble” (according to The Crown’s depiction of Balmoral mandatory post-prandial games).

  2. Snuffles says:

    It’s so absurd the significance the press puts on such small, petty things in the bigger picture. Who gets the visit Balmoral, who gets to stand on the balcony, who gets the better seat at an event…like it’s the end all be all of these people’s existence.

    • tamsin says:

      But it does appear to be the end all and be all of these people’s existence. The rota , the courtiers and therefore by extension the royal family themselves have reduced themselves to this life long pettiness.

    • Shawna says:

      In this case, a life of privilege makes a life of purpose impossible.

    • Blithe says:

      That’s all any of this is. The titles, the badges, the funny hats, the seating charts — they’re all tiny symbolic things with little or no value of their own.

      QEll, by virtue of her longevity, her history, and perhaps her genuine and sincere commitment to her version of “service” added value to the baubles and the waves and the brief personal interactions. Charles — not so much, and some of them — not at all.

      It must be very strange for people like the Duke of Kent and others in his age range to see and experience the majesty become less and less majestic, and to contemplate having the incurious, work-shy, uncharismatic William at the helm of whatever’s left.

      • Leslie says:

        @Blithe: Very well said. Queen Elizabeth II served her country and commonwealth in a way that, I am very sure, no other monarch will ever be able to replicate, nor even care to do.

      • bisynaptic says:

        This.

  3. Pinkosaurus says:

    I love that they are reminding their readers financially reeling from Brexit that the sweaty entitled nonce will be pouting because he won’t get his taxpayer funded Scotland summer holiday this year.

  4. Becks1 says:

    Hmmm. My guess is Balmoral has lost a lot of its appeal now that its not a place to network with QEII. But, I do think the family will spend time there this August/September. Anne also seems to enjoy Balmoral. i wouldnt be surprised if Charles and his siblings were all there for the anniversary of the Queen’s death.

    I just don’t think being seen going to church with Charles has the same significance as being seen with the late Queen, you know?

    • SarahCS says:

      Nailed it.

      The dynamic has completely shifted and while some of them may enjoy being up there it’s no longer about the prestige of being invited by Liz.

  5. Does anyone really care that the pedo won’t have time in Scotland? Isn’t he afraid if he leaves his lodge that is being fixed that Chuckles will change the locks?

  6. Amy Bee says:

    I’m not sure Andrew would be too upset about delaying his stay at Balmoral if it means the family can make more money.

  7. Tina says:

    Charles will want a family photo with the Windsor gang but otherwise I don’t think he really cares about extended family time. We all know this is not a close family. They will gather for a few days then scatter to their own vacations. But of course everything discussed about the pictures will be about the 4 people missing from them.

  8. ML says:

    I won’t click on this article, but I find the excerpt interesting. It leads with the universally despised Paedrew: look he can’t visit Scotland due to his brother! Then it segues into Balmoral being open to earn £££ an extra 2 weeks (less of a burden to taxpayers?). After that it invokes a memory of the queen, etc,…

    CRex and his family have had a rough time in Scotland recently. To me this reads as an attempt to dampen the discontent.

    • BeanieBean says:

      Gotta say, it didn’t work on the American; not sure about the Scots, but reading about Chuckie’s summer hols starting at the Castle of May, then moving to Birkhall, then Balmoral itself was just irritating. This is far from relatable!

      • ML says:

        Absolutely unrelatable, BeanieBean! Sort of like the “woe is us” we might be forced to move into one of our 13 residences at 80, which is so, so difficult. Or spending time in many of your 10+ homes throughout the year and ignoring the costs and privilege associated with that.

  9. Concern Fae says:

    Every description I’ve read of these Balmoral made them sound like a nightmare. No wonder Andrew loves it.

  10. Rebecca says:

    When QEII was alive, both she and Andrew were at Balmoral in May on at least one occasion, and the Balmoral grounds was still opened to the public. It was how I, a lowly American, actually saw him in person. I was on a Range Rover tour of the Balmoral Estate. We were told the Queen was in residence at Craigowan Lodge, as was Andrew As we drove around the area, Andrew was walking up a hill with three dogs. Andrew asked our guide to stop, so that Andrew could tell our guide to be careful and not run over the dogs. Before Andrew got to the car, we were told no photos, and don’t speak to him (fine by me!). We later saw his car at one of the cabins on the grounds.

    We also stopped by the guardhouse by the Craigowan Lodge briefly, where the guide just chatted briefly (probably to just let them know the tour group was on the loose). The guide mentioned that QEII often came up to Balmoral for a week in May, it was not unusual, and it was business as usual for the tourism side of Balmoral.

    Anyway, unless Charles has banned him from Balmoral, Andrew can and has visited during the tourist season. Yet another odd story from the BM, unless Andrew is feeding stories to the BM because Charles did ban him from visiting whenever he felt like going up!

    • BeanieBean says:

      Or they are just clueless about the whole setup & never bothered to do even a teeny bit of research.

  11. BlueNailsBetty says:

    Why exactly do these people need a vacation? They don’t do any real work. Showing up for a photo op and staying 30 minutes to an hour per event is not work unless you are doing 8 events per day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year.

    Even Elizabeth and Anne, who always topped the events list, worked approx 300-400 hours PER YEAR.

    As for Andrew, he’s the worst because he’s not working or doing any events yet he is still funded by the taxpayers. So f*ck that guy and his oh so cushy life.

  12. Mary Pester says:

    Another dross peice! It’s open to the public for longer? Yep more money into the Royal Bank account that they won’t pay tax on. Prince ponce has happy memories of Balmoral, because that’s where he ran, to hide behind his mummies skirt, so those big bad solicitors for the woman he abused and trafficked could not serve papers on him, AND SHE BLOODY WELL LET HIM! That was no way for a queen to behave, HEAD OF STATE!! She should have kicked his ass out of the gates and told him to go face the music and either prove his innocence or take the punishment. But no, she hid him up there for weeks, and then gave him millions AGAIN to get out of another situation, just like she did with his Swiss chalet, and the dodgy dealings with Sunningdale. Christ almighty I wish an investigative reporter would do a REAL deep dive on this mafia sect and a paper /TV channel would have the guts to publish it

    • SarahCS says:

      Head of State and Head of the Church of England.

    • ML says:

      Well said, Mary Pester! And yes, QE2 was both HoS and Head of the CoE, SarahCS. Time to look into that.

    • Shawna says:

      You’re 100% right. One perspective on QEII that made her appealing was the perception that she was steely about what’s right and wrong. That goes back to her father insisting on the royals staying in London during the Blitz. So allowing Andrew to hide goes against that courageous facade.

      • Mary Pester says:

        @shauna, that’s true, BUT what they didn’t bank on were the pictures of the king, the Queen mother, the princesses all together in a picture giving a Nazi salute
        You can’t hide your history with the Internet in existence

    • Heather says:

      I urge you to read “And What Do YOU Do?” By Norman Baker, former MP and member of the Privvy Council. She may have been beloved, but QEII set her family UP financially and really is the greatest grifter of all time 🤷🏽‍♀️

      • bisynaptic says:

        @Heather, It’s an eye-opening book. Balmoral was bought with money that was supposed to go towards Queen Victoria’s official monarchial duties, so, one could make a case that it’s public, not private, property.

    • bisynaptic says:

      This.

  13. EasternViolet says:

    Why can’t Andrew stay at Birkhall or Mey? Why does it HAVE to be Balmoral?

    • Blithe says:

      Wouldn’t Charles still control access to all of those options? The issue, then, is that Andrew would have to be invited.

    • Truthiness says:

      Birkhall belongs to Charles, who inherited it from the Queen Mum. It’s one of his ‘pride and joy’ possessions, he honeymooned there with Camilla.

  14. Paisley25 says:

    Do a lot of people visit Balmoral? I thought it was pretty remote. Do the ticket sales come close to the cost of maintaining it?

    Ridiculous that Charles has two houses he stays at, and none of them are actually Balmoral Castle. Does he rent those out the rest of the year?

    • Becks1 says:

      It looks fairly remote to me but there are cottages on the estate that you can rent so I would not be surprised if a fair number of tourists build it into a road trip through Scotland or something.

  15. SOUTHERNMONSTER says:

    I wish everybody suffering with cancer had a choice of when/if to travel rather than how soon they have to get back to work. I have sympathy for Fergie but it’s limited due to her extraordinary ability to not work or worry about finances which don’t stop with cancer for most people.

  16. Jaded says:

    The family is fractured now that QEII is gone, she was the glue that held it together. Camzilla will undoubtedly have her family up to visit, but it’s not going to be the forced jollity it was in the past. I doubt the WanKs will be there together, even Balmoral isn’t big enough for the 2 of them and we all know Chuck isn’t her biggest fan. As for Andrew and Fergie, he still is persona non grata and I doubt she’ll feel well enough to travel. DIEP flap surgery is hell to recover from, and if she’s undergoing radiation and chemo, she’s going to be weak as a kitten for some months. Her so-called BFF Andrew would do well to just stay out of sight and take care of her as much as he can. Maybe he’ll let her sleep with his teddy bears.

  17. Quarto says:

    I always wonder if the lesser royals don’t feel trapped by some of these non-official traditions. Like, I’d personally love to go spend some time at Balmoral and stay in a beautiful estate and ride horses and stalk stags or whatever they end up doing. But if I were stinking rich and had the ability to take whatever luxury holiday I wanted, the thought of NOT going and hunting grouse with my immediate family like I have done every summer for the last 60+ years and was expecting to do until I die… might seem like a nice change? Like Pedo Andy is thinking, “W00T! Off to the tropics!”

  18. MY3CENTS says:

    So should I be searching Airbnb for cozy Scottish Castle getaway this summer?